


Escapism

by grayimperia



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-16 07:44:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11824194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grayimperia/pseuds/grayimperia
Summary: [Major V3 Spoilers]“Shooting star,” Shirogane says. “Make a wish.”“I wish I was someone else.”“Yeah,” she leans against him, bumping their shoulders together in a gesture far too affectionate for their despair. “Me, too.”-Kaede dies, and Saihara makes a different friend.





	Escapism

**Author's Note:**

> Major spoilers for the entirety of V3.

The bruise on his face from where Momota punched him still hurts. It’s dull, but it’s there, and it provides an emotion to focus on that isn’t grief or self-hatred. So that’s good, Saihara thinks absently. He runs his fingers over the books on the shelf leading to the mastermind’s hideout that he killed two people over. 

Amami’s death was probably instant. Kaede’s wasn’t. Saihara’s face hurts when he runs his fingers over where Momota punched him for being too horrified to react to anything when the piano lid came crashing down.

He hears footsteps behind him, and a soft voice call out, “Oh, I wasn’t expecting to see anyone else here.”

Saihara turns and Shirogane’s standing framed in the doorway, her hands held to her heart. She doesn’t move, simply choosing to watch him with too much curiosity and too much concern, and Saihara suddenly retracts his hand from the bookshelf as if it was on fire. His face feels like it’s on fire, and he tugs his hat lower over his eyes. “Ah, I was just…” he looks at the ground where Amami’s corpse was yesterday. Saihara bites the inside of his cheek. 

He trails off, and Shirogane steps towards him then. “Were you looking for a book, too?”

Saihara’s head snaps towards her. “Huh? Oh, um,” he looks around and takes in the library around him. He forces himself to look into her plain face staring unthreateningly back, and then he forces a smile. “What kind of book were you looking for, Shirogane-san?”

“Ah,” she walks to the shelf next to him, genuinely examining the titles. “I doubt there’s any manga here, but even if there was, I’m not really looking for anything in particular, well,” she gives him a self-deprecating smile, “maybe something exciting would be nice—something distracting, you know?”

“Distracting?” he echoes, taking a step closer.

Shirogane lets out a soft, almost sad laugh. “Yeah. It’s not really helpful, but I think doing something to escape from everything for a little while might be nice. To be honest,” she pushes a strand of long blue hair behind her ear, and Saihara finds himself watching the gesture far too intently. “I was kind of hoping no one would be here—it’s a little embarrassing.”

“No,” Saihara says too loud, and his face flushes as he looks at the ground, “that sounds…” if Amami’s corpse was still here, his shoes would be covered in his blood, “that sounds really nice, actually.”

Shirogane smiles again. “Maybe we can find something for each of us.” She clasps her hands. “I’ve always wanted to be part of a book club, but I never really had anyone to do it with me—I, um,” she looks at the ground, too, “I don’t have too many friends back home, and I don’t really know anyone here…”

Saihara shakes his head, and the image of Amami’s body disappears. “I don’t either.”

Sitting on the floor with books about happy people spread all around them, they stare at the same page when Shirogane points to a particularly funny line. Saihara smiles as he leans closer to her to read it, and Shirogane says, “Oh, Saihara-kun, your face…”

“Ah,” he reaches up to feel the bruise. 

She winces. “Is it from yesterday?”

“Yes,” Saihara nods. “But it’s fine… it doesn’t really hurt. I, um, I actually almost forgot about it completely.”

“Oh,” Shirogane says smiling again. “Well, that’s good. If you can ignore the problem, then it isn’t really a problem, right? Oh, er,” she looks at the ground, “maybe that’s bad advice.”

“No,” he says. “I think it’s good.”

He stays in the library with Shirogane until dark and isn’t in his room when Momota rings his doorbell that night.

-

Shirogane is nice, Saihara thinks. She’s nice and calming and sometimes she gets lost in thought and just stares off into space, but that means Saihara doesn’t have to constantly worry about making conversation or saying the right thing. And that’s good. 

He’s sitting with her at breakfast and notices how everyone just moves around them as if they were just part of the scenery. He always felt like a shadow, and Shirogane once self-deprecatingly compared herself to wallpaper so he supposes it makes sense. The others are loud and bright and all give him these sad sympathetic looks when they notice him that force him to remember. 

Shirogane doesn’t talk about the killing game or the trial or how pretending Kaede never existed is deeply unhealthy. Shirogane talks about stories. Shirogane is so, so nice to talk to.

Saihara’s lost in the middle of that last thought when Momota claps him on the back too hard, sending pain jolting through his entire body. “Hey, man,” he says. “I was looking for you last night.”

Saihara exchanges an uneasy look with Shirogane and asks, “You were?”

“Yeah, I—”

Shirogane interrupts. “Momota-kun,” she says sternly, “I think you should apologize to Saihara-kun for the other day.”

He scratches the back of his head. “Did I already do that?” he shrugs. “Well, sorry again, if I didn’t. Anyway, last night—”

“I was with Shirogane-san,” Saihara says quickly. “We were, um,” he suddenly feels very awkward and pulls his hat down, “we were just reading together.”

Momota looks between them, internally weighing something Saihara can only guess at. “Is that right?” he says finally. 

“It is,” Saihara says again, and Shirogane nods along eagerly. 

“Well, alright,” Momota leans back, finally taking his hand off Saihara’s back, finally leaving. “You two,” he looks between them again and settles on, “you guys seem good for each other.”

He awkwardly gets up and shuffles away, and Saihara lets out a sigh of relief. Shirogane offers a sympathetic smile and goes back to talking about fiction, and Saihara is so, so thankful.

-

Saihara has a dream that fades in and out and twists over itself until it becomes too muddled to even attempt to piece through. But he’s standing in front of a mirror and there’s a familiar hat on his head and he’s repeating practiced lines while sweat beads down his neck.

He says he wants to go to a different world. He just wants to be part of that world. He just wants

Saihara wakes up breathing too heavily and the cold water he splashes in his face does nothing to calm him down. 

Saihara stands in front of a mirror and thinks how badly he wants to leave this world behind.

Shirogane comes by later armed with DVDs from the AV room and a bright smile as she declares she found one of her favorite shows buried among everything else. She talks over and around herself in her excitement, words spinning figure eights and summersaults and making him dizzy. The show they watch is bright and fast and makes him dizzier. Shirogane sits on the edge of her seat, eyes trained on him rather than the screen. She says, “I just want to see how you react to things! That’s the most fun part of watching your favorite shows with your friends.”

He smiles weakly back. Shirogane said the word ‘friends’ like it was nothing, but it echoes in his head and drowns out the show and Shirogane insists they rewind to rewatch part of it that he wasn’t appreciating enough the first time around. 

At a particularly dramatic scene, she reaches out and squeezes one of his hands, loudly whispering, “This is the best part!”

The show plays around him and Shirogane’s hand is warm and encouraging and Saihara feels dizzier than ever.

-

And people die.

Hoshi dies because Tojo claimed he wanted to. Tenko and Angie die because Shinguji claimed he needed them to. And Iruma and Gonta die because Ouma says the game required them to.

Saihara stands with Shirogane in the background and watches. 

When the first killing happened anew, Saihara didn’t suddenly stop being a detective. Hoshi’s remains stared up at him between the water and shattered glass pooling out across the gym floor. The others call out that with him on their side, the killer would be found in no time, and all Saihara can distantly think is how it’s nice there isn’t blood this time like with Amami as he stares at Hoshi’s skull.

Shirogane seems to notice how pale he’s gone, and says, “It’s okay if you can’t do it, you know. This is so horrible, but,” she smiles at him as reassuringly as she can, “there’s thirteen of us, so I’m sure someone else can do it if it’s too hard.”

Saihara nods but he tries and he knows and when Tojo starts talking about Kaede _he can’t_. 

So Ouma does. He’s small and childish and doesn’t look or talk much like the hero meant to save them, but Saihara would take almost anyone.

Shirogane says that some people are weak and some are strong and it’s okay to be a weak person. It’s okay if you’re not meant to be the hero or lead the way or find the truth.

After the trial, Saihara asks Shirogane if they can watch another of her shows together. They stay up late, and she falls asleep and Saihara keeps watching until he stops seeing the saws tear into Tojo’s body.

-

Before her death, Angie talked about how God would save them all if they just believed. She came around to their doors at night, and Saihara answered and she told him all about how God would protect him and he wouldn’t have to worry or run from the pain anymore.

He joins because Shirogane joins and because blending in with the crowd seems to be his true talent. But Saihara doesn’t think he really needs Angie’s God. He just needs the AV room to never run out of shows for Shirogane to find for them. 

After Shinguji’s execution, Shirogane makes a point to forgo watching anything that even remotely seems like the relationship he detailed having with his sister. With an uneasy smile, she says, “Hits a little too close to home, doesn’t it?”

Saihara nods when she presses play. If he wanted to think about the killing game, he wouldn’t be sitting next to her, idly holding hands and pretending he was still at a time before Amami died. 

-

There are nine of them left and in her research lab, Shirogane says, “Sorry if this is depressing, but have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror and just wished you were different in every single way?”

Saihara stares forward at where Shirogane twists and turns before the full length mirror, her long skirt twisting and twirling and getting caught up in his eyes. He lowers his eyes and lowers the brim of his hat even further—it’s impolite to stare, after all. 

Saihara says, “Yes.”

Shirogane hums and her elegant hands move to smooth down the front of her elegant skirt. “I don’t think it’s that bad, honestly. You just kind of get used to wanting to be someone else,” she looks at him over her shoulder, and the stage lights over them make her glasses glow. “Don’t you think so?”

There’s nothing to say, and Saihara says, “Yes,” daring to take his eyes off the ground for a moment.

She smiles softly, encouragingly, as if she were coaxing a frightened animal into approaching her. “I’m actually relieved to hear that,” she says, turning back to stare into the shining mirror. Saihara sees himself silhouetted behind her in its reflection, and Shirogane says, “It’s hard to find people who see things the same way you do, you know?”

For the third time, Saihara says, “Yes,” he tugs at his hat, “It is.”

He sees her reflection smile. “I’m glad we found each other, Saihara-kun.”

He feels his collar sticking to the back of his neck and his jacket feels too heavy and the floor feels like it’s falling and the sky feels like its crashing, and his face is burning when he says, “Me, too.”

Shirogane walks over to him and squeezes both his hands in hers. “I mean that, you know. As long as we have each other, I think we can make it out of this.”

Saihara looks up to meet her plain eyes and she dips her head slightly to see him under the brim of his hat. He says, “I hope we do,” and Shirogane smiles.

-

The virtual world is amazing. 

Shirogane complains about the graphics. Saihara smiles. Iruma gets strangled and they have the most painful trial yet. 

The world outside has been turned to ash. They’ve all been killing each other to escape into hell. This is the painful truth, and Saihara wonders why the hell some as weak as him had to make it so far to see how hopeless everything always was. 

He watches the fake stars lighting up the dome of the ceiling with Shirogane that night. He says, “You know who I think I’m really jealous of?”

“Who?” she says back softly, the fake moon shining in her glasses.

“Amami-kun.” Saihara pulls his knees up to his chest. “I wish I was him right now.”

Shirogane doesn’t respond immediately, but instead points up to one of the fake stars flaring through the sky. “Shooting star,” she says. “Make a wish.”

“I wish I was someone else.”

“Yeah,” Shirogane leans against him, bumping their shoulders together in a gesture far too affectionate for their despair. “Me, too.”

-

Ouma declares himself to be the mastermind, and Shirogane starts sweating bullets in a way Saihara has never seen before. She says, “it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine,” and she becomes pale as death when the next Monokuma File says the victim is unknown.

She holds his hand too tight and tells him he _has_ to figure out what’s happening. She oversees every part of the investigation with an iron grip, and the girl who told him it was okay to fail and be weak seems like she never existed at all.

Saihara’s detective skills are rusty ever since he dropped out of the world and let Ouma switch personalities like a spinning roulette wheel to play hero to his own villain in order to both taunt them and keep everyone alive. But now Ouma’s dead. Maybe. 

Monokuma says they’re all best friends now who need to work together to solve this mystery, and Shirogane is far, far too eager for a truth she never cared about before, and Saihara sees all the pieces and wants more than nothing to not put them together. 

He’s forced to speak at the trial. Harukawa pelts him with insults and threats like stones being thrown at his execution because apparently Momota turned to save her when he decided Saihara was a lost cause. But Momota’s the one hiding from them all, and Saihara outs him the first chance he gets because that’s what Shirogane said he should do. 

Harukawa cries when Momota dies. Saihara watches the execution like it’s one of Shirogane’s favorite shows. 

After Harukawa’s done tearing him apart for tearing her heart out, Shirogane throws her arms around his shoulders and hugs him tight and says she’s so happy he was able to do it and she doesn’t even want to think about what would happen if they got it wrong. Monokuma congratulates him, too, and Saihara knows everything is wrong, wrong, wrong.

A part of himself he hasn’t managed to silence completely tells him that Kaede told him to find the mastermind and save everyone. Shirogane finally pulls back from her hug and tells him again how happy she is. 

-

Saihara doesn’t need to investigate to know. If anything, he has to wonder how long ago he figured it out. 

On the elevator ride down to the sixth and final class trial, Shirogane squeezes his hand. “No matter what happens, we’ll have each other, and,” she laughs, “we’ll have the AV room and book club and stargazing, too.”

Saihara takes a deep breath. “I’m glad I met you. Even if everything was a lie, I’m still glad.” 

Her eyes widen for a split second before her plain face sheds its shock for innocent confusion. “Saihara-kun?”

“Nothing,” he says. “I just hope… I just hope that hope wins out in the end like in all of your shows.”

Her smile is as bright and real as every star in the fake sky above their heads. Shirogane says, “Me, too,” and her hand holding his is as soft and comforting as Kaede’s before she killed her by twisting Saihara’s truth so long ago. 

But that’s okay, Saihara thinks as Shirogane smiles again. Kaede was fiction, too.

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to write a Shirogane+Saihara thing for a long time now, and it being her birthday encouraged me to finish this, though I'd hesitate to call it a birthday fic for obvious reasons, haha.
> 
> Edit: RandomMunchkin here on Ao3 is amazing and drew fanart! Check it out! https://iamclearlyyouroverlord.tumblr.com/post/164348824444/escapism-by-grayimperia-is-an-amazing-fic-and-you


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